Last updated January 10th, 1999
"So dress a little dangerous, yes, and modify your walk.
There's nothing wrong with sparrows, but try to be a sparrowhawk.
Hunting in the evening and floating in the heat of the day.
You might, might acquire some predatory instinct.
Do the wolfpack crawl.
Don't stay forever in your limbo - fly, before you fall,
little sparrow on the schoolyard wall."
-- Jethro Tull, Sparrow on the Schoolyard Wall
There were no plans in 1990 to issue a new Jethro Tull album, but the fans got an
interesting surprise when a company called Strange Fruit (the label set up to release
BBC archive recordings) released an album recorded at the Tull concert in
Hammersmith, 1984 during the Under
Wraps tour. The limitations of the vinyl record allowed for only some 40
minutes of the 60-minute show to be issued, something that is sad to this day, but this
record is a testament to how good the shows based on the Under Wraps tour really were.
The album doesn't have any stellar live recordings of Tull's great hits, given when
this album was recorded, but it does have a terrific instrumental version of the Tull
classic "Locomotive Breath" as well as a nice version of "Pussy Willow" and a good
rendition of "Living in the Past." The album is marred by the fact that there are obvious
places when other tracks have been played and one has missed them, and the
sound quality of the Strange Fruit recording is not all that good in places. Overall,
this album was a good surprise for Tull fans in a year when it looked like there would
be no new Tull album, and the music on Live at Hammersmith '84 is a good
showcase for the Tull that was on tour at the time.
The next Tull album, Catfish Rising, didn't come on the scene until 1991, and it
was an album that saw the core of Tull - Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, Dave Pegg and
Doane Perry - intact, but saw three different keyboardists (four, if one includes Ian
Anderson) record different tracks with the band. These were John Bundrick, Foss
Patterson, and Andrew Giddings. Catfish Rising is probably one of the most
earthy and organic albums that Tull has done since their early days, and this naturally
caused the music critics and the fans of the band to react in different ways to the album.
What did the fans get on this album? From a musical standpoint, the Catfish Rising
album is one of the more innovative works that Ian Anderson had written during the
last few years, and the album has a very blues-oriented sound in many respects.
Tracks such as "Roll Yer Own" and "Sleeping with the Dog" are very evocative of
the blues, as are the melodic and lovely "Still Loving You Tonight" (which also has a
few of Martin Barre's traditional riffs in it), but other songs such as "This Is Not Love,"
"Doctor to My Disease," and "Sparrow on the Schoolyard Wall" are all very much
rockers that bring the band's more rock-oriented side to the forefront. Lyrically, Ian
Anderson's comments on various subjects form a solid backdrop for most of the music,
although the sexual innuendo of "Like A Tall Thin Girl" continues the trend to deal with
that subject, and "White Innocence" is a rather plainly explicit song in its own roundabout
fashion as well. Two of my favourite tracks on the album are the aforementioned
"Sparrow on the Schoolyard Wall" and "Rocks on the Road," and I've always been
partial to the interesting "When Jesus Came to Play" (which doesn't seem to draw all
that much attention to itself). While Catfish Rising is a very good album, both
musically and lyrically, when push comes to shove there is little on this record to mark
it as classic Tull or to even cause it to be included as one of the classics of the band.
That doesn't make the album any less interesting musically, or any less enjoyable to
listen to in this reviewer's opinion.
The 1992 Tull release was A Little Light Music, a live album that was based
around the Light Music tour in 1992. The tour itself was plagued by the problem
of what to call it, since there were some heavy rock pieces on the tour such as
"Locomotive Breath" and "Aqualung" (although the latter didn't make it onto the album),
but what it came down to was a tour that placed an emphasis on the acoustic material
of Jethro Tull, although Ian Anderson included some of the heavier material on the tour,
since the fans expected Tull to play *some* of the standards. For the tour, Ian Anderson,
Martin Barre, and Dave Pegg were joined by Dave Mattacks on the percussion and
keyboards, and the tour was a superb set of music. I remember seeing the concert
that Tull performed here in Ottawa at the time, and while the acoustics of the venue
were not all that good, the music certainly was - so I looked forward to the A Little
Light Music album.
From a musical point of view, the album (the tour, too) was superb. While the set
included songs such as "Rocks on the Road" and "This Is Not Love" from the
Catfish Rising album, there were venerable pieces played on this tour album
as well, including a terrific version of "Nursie" "A Christmas Song," and "Life Is A
Long Song" (all from the Living in
the Past period), and even "Some Day the Sun Won't Shine For You" (from This Was, and an instrumental version
of "Look Into the Sun" (from Stand Up
which was superbly executed. One of the more interesting pieces on the album was
a version of the traditional "John Barleycorn" (which was actually recorded with Greek
star George Dalares, but which was over-dubbed with Ian Anderson's vocals for general
release, only the Greek and Israeli albums retaining the duet version of the song.
When all is said and done, A Little Light Music is a good souvenir for the fans who
were at the concerts (and those who weren't) a taste of Tull's live music and their acoustic
brilliance.
In 1993, many Tull fans were hoping for a new album from the band, but equally as
much they were hoping for the 25th anniversary of the band to be celebrated in some
way by Chrysalis Records. The fans got more than they hoped for, but alas, there
was no new Tull album released because of it. The deluge started in April of 1993
with the 25th Anniversary Boxed Set, a huge volume containing four CDs,
that presented a varied mix of Tull music, both live and newly remastered versions
of old classics and favourites. Packaged in a lavish cigar box format, the 25th
Anniversary Boxed Set included a lovely48-page booklet with photographs
and rare clips from newspapers and marquees and other such materials. It contained
an introduction by Ian Anderson, and perspectives by various people "in the know"
about Jethro Tull and the music and history of the band. The music on this Tull set's
four CDs covers the entire gamut of Jethro Tull's studio and live performance
history, and is a brilliantly textured, highly retrospective look at the Tull band as
a whole. As I did with the 20
Years of Jethro Tull set, I thought I would provide a CD-by-CD breakdown
of this wonderful boxed set of music.
Remixed Classic Songs
The first CD in this four-CD set of Tull's music is the Remixed Classic Songs CD. As
the CD title indicates, this is a set of remastered classics that has been re-recorded
by the current line-up of Tull; in some ways, this album is a very special set of music
and in some regards, worth the cost of the boxed set alone. There is no mistaking
the the reverb and other audio effects that have been liberally added to the earlier
tracks, but these tricks weren't available when some of these tracks were recorded
originally. "A Song for Jeffrey" (from the This Was
album), "Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die" (from the album of the same name,
and "Black Sunday" (from the A album) each
benefit remarkably from the remixing here, but the two stand-outs in this regard have
to be "Songs From the Wood" (from the Songs From the Wood
album) and "Heavy Horses" (from Heavy
Horses), both of which contain instrumentation that was either edited or mixed
out of the original fine recordings of the two albums. My two favourite tracks on this CD
consist of the aforementioned "Heavy Horses" and "Sweet Dream" (from the Living in the Past album), the
latter of which benefits significantly from being remixed here, but "A Song for Jeffrey"
sounds terrific in this new mix as well.
Carnegie Hall, N.Y. Recorded Live, New York City 1970
The second CD in this four-CD set, Carnegie Hall, N.Y. Recorded Live, New York City
1970, contains the entire show from Carnegie Hall in New York in 1970, of which two
tracks, "By Kind Permission Of" and "Dharma for One," were given to the fans on the
Living in the Past double
album. This CD is a tremendous record, which shows the sheer vital energy and raw
power that Tull had in the 1970s, and features a tremendous "Guitar Solo" by Martin
Barre that sparks and fires on all cylinders. The only thing that truly mars this CD
recording is the fact that Chrysalis chose not to reunite the two previously issued tracks
on this CD to make the concert complete, even though there was plenty of room to do
so. This CD is unique since it marks one of the earliest playings of the "My God" track
which would later be found on the Aqualung album and is also a purely
electric bit of music on the part of the band. John Evans magnificent piano work is
featured on "With You There to Help Me," and the concert just shows how *good*
Tull was back at the start of their careers. The banter that Ian Anderson carries on
during the various songs is highly enjoyable as well, and marks this CD as the true
gem in the collection.
The Beacons Bottom Tapes
In some ways, the third CD on this four-CD set, The Beacons Bottoms Tapes, is the
most interesting of all musically. For the most part recorded in the quaint little village
of Beacons Bottoms in November of 1992, this CD features re-recorded songs from
Tull, some of the favourites of the band, updated for the 90s. In actual fact, the CD
name is something of a misnomer, since five of the fourteen tracks weren't recorded
there. "So Much Trouble," "Someday the Sun Won't Shine for You," "Living in the
Past," and "Bourée" were recorded at Ian's home studio; "Cheerio" was recorded
at Dave Pegg's Wormwoods Studio; and "Protect and Survive" was recorded at Martin
Barre's Presshouse Studio.
The simple fact of the matter is that this CD actually sounds in some respects like a
live concert, only recorded in the studio. "Bourée" (from the Stand Up album), "Thick As A Brick (from
the album of the same name),
"A New Day Yesterday" (from Stand Up
as well), and "My God" (from Aqualung)
all have a live feeling to them, since each song incorporates some of the material in
the middle or during the song that the band usually adds during concerts. The piece
in the middle of "A New Day Yersterday" is actually the instrumental version of "Kelpie"
(from the 20 Years of Jethro
Tull CD set, but recorded during the Stormwatch sessions), and this
was the way the band played the song during the concert tours of 1993 and 1994. The
Brownie McGee classic blues piece "So Much Trouble" is included here, and is a
wonderful rendition of that blues piece, and harkens back to the original Tull days
and This Was. There are other
highlights on this CD, however... "Living in the Past" (from the album of the same name) is
a lively and jazzy version of the song that features Ian Anderson on all the instruments.
The instrumental version of "Cheerio" (from The Broadsword and the
Beast) is a terrific piece that has the flavour of a country-and-western sound.
The instrumental of "Protect and Survive" (from the A
album) is almost totally acoustic, and has a sound to it that makes it one of my favourite
pieces in this CD collection. And finally the reworking of "The Whistler" (from Songs From the Wood)
into a rock 'n roll instrumental is superb; according to the liner notes, Ian Anderson
doesn't play on this piece at all! For these reasons alone, the Beacons Bottom Tapes
CD is one of my favourites from this set, even though there are some shocking pieces
and arrangements on it. Yet it is also a sign of what is to come with Tull, both from
a concert perspective and from the point of view of some of the current members
favourite tracks.
Pot Pourri: Live Across The World & Through The Years
The fourth and final CD on the four-CD set is the Pot Pourri set, which contains a series
of live recordings from various concerts at various times in Tull's history. The music
here ranges from the concerts in Stockholm, Sweden in 1969 (with "To Be Sad Is A Mad
Way to Be" and "Back to the Family" (from Stand
Up)) to Chicago, USA and Montreal, Canada, both 1992. The problem with
this CD is that the concert music is rather disjointed, with an emphasis on more recent
concert dates. Mind you, the nice surprise of the "To Be Sad is a Mad Way to Be" and
the extract from A Passion Play
that is found here makes the CD quite nice, and makes me wish that Tull were still
playing snippets of that album in their concerts these days (although the nice "Passion
Jig" is a bit of interesting nostalgia based on that album). When it comes right down to
it, this fourth CD is certainly the weakest of the set, but has a few snippets of charm and
grace on it that make it interesting to listen to.
Final Thought
So what is the overall consensus of the 25th Anniversary Boxed Set of Jethro
Tull music? This CD set is certainly inferior to the 20 Years of Jethro Tull 3-CD
set that was released earlier, but it does have its charm and appeal. The most valuable
of the CDs is likely the Live at Carnegie Hall, N.Y. CD, although it has its own problems
mentioned above, but I am fond of the Beacons Bottom Tapes CD and the "Passion Play
Extract" and "Passion Jig" from the Pot Pourri CD. Does a Jethro Tull fan really need this
set? I don't honestly know, but I know that I'm glad I picked it up at the time. The music
of the band is, to put it mildly, timeless, and the four CDs on this set reflect that to some
extent. But for such a milestone anniversary of the band, one would have thought that
Chrysalis would have put together something a bit more...celebratory.
Continue on to The Nineties Tull, Part Two
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This page first went on-line January 5th, 1999